Second surgery at Oregon Zoo clears out Tusko's tusk

The veterinarian drilled. The dentist chiseled. They both pried and pulled. Finally, after more than 3½ hours of surgery today on a beloved Oregon Zoo elephant, the two men rose to their feet and slapped their right hands in a bloody high five.

They'd just removed the final piece of a difficult puzzle: a 10-inch-long chunk of rock-hard tusk and dentin from high inside the pachyderm's skull. At last, Tusko was tusk-free.

Today's surgery was the second in six weeks for the 13,500-pound Asian elephant, who had suffered for years from an untreatable infection in his left tusk. Concerned that the infection could lead to heart, liver or kidney trouble, zoo veterinarian Mitch Finnegan decided the tusk had to go.

In mid-February, Finnegan, along with a dentist from Florida, veterinarians from Oregon State University and Wildlife Safari, and a crew of more than a dozen zoo employees spent nearly five hours using drills, chisels and chain saws to carve out most of the stinky old tusk. But Finnegan feared that keeping Tusko anesthetized any longer would be too dangerous. The crew woke the elephant, whose age is estimated at 35, and made plans for Round 2.

Since then, Finnegan put the zoo's maintenance crew to work buying, fabricating and modifying tools. Carbide-tipped drills, a grinder and extra-long crowbars with tips forged into rounded paddles and sharpened hooks lined the elephant barn floor Sunday. Finnegan called for them just as a surgeon might demand a scalpel.